Chapter 29
After bringing down two tanks, Steve stopped to try taking a deep breath and a look around the battlefield for the statues of his team.
For a moment he couldn’t spot anyone, before he could panic, Falcon flew right beside him, knocking down a trail of soldiers, followed by War Machine dealing with a tank.
Then he spotted Clint, Natasha and Bucky aggressively and with increasing frustration dealing with a particular tough group of soldiers.
When he turned around, he saw Dean and Dark Dean on top of a car, engaged in a fight filled with pure rage and loudly shouted obscenities, mainly from their own Dean.
Like planned, SHIELD had joined the fight earlier, which made things go a lot smoother as he saw Maria Hill and Phil Coulson lead their teams through the fight.
As he tried to figure out who he should go help, the warship exploded in the sky. He looked up with a proud smile on his face, as he saw his husband fly through the air with the two mutants, towards the Quinjet.
His thoughts were interrupted when a group of soldiers thought it was a good idea to attack him.
***
Castiel was charging again at the Dark angel with full speed.
Then suddenly, Dark Castiel grabbed the sides of his head and screamed in tortured pain, body twisting and spasming in the middle of the air.
Castiel and Thor froze as they stared at the tortured Angel in confused panic.
***
“Fuck! I am detecting a dangerously high radiation levels!” Sam exclaimed in panic as he stared down at the tablet. “Dark Castiel is about to go supernova!”
“Cas! Your doppelganger is about to have a meltdown!” Tony yelled through the comms, willing himself not to panic.
***
Castiel watched with wide eyes as his doppelganger started to glow a dangerous shade of red, as his screams got louder and the air around them started to feel like static.
“What do I do?!” Castiel yelled back through the comms, unable to take his eyes off the disaster right in front of him.
***
“You need to fly him up! Up! And away!” Tony exclaimed, as everyone in the Quinjet got to their feet in rising panic. “Now!”
“And get away from him as fast as you possibly could!” Sam added frantically, worry and panic paralyzing him.
***
Dark Castiel resembled now a small sun from how hard he was glowing.
Castiel exchanged a quick look with Thor, before flying towards his doppelganger in determination.
“Castiel, no, wait!” he ignored Thor’s shout, as he grabbed the dying angel and flew up, up towards the sky as fast as he could.
On the ground, Steve’s eyes widened as he saw Castiel fly with a glowing angel in his arms, hoping that Dean wasn’t seeing the same thing to not get distracted in the middle of his relentless fight.
With everyone’s heart banging in their chests in anticipation, they all jumped when the explosion happened, high up in the sky away from everything.
***
At the sound of the supernova explosion, Dark Dean turned sharply towards the sky.
“No!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, his mask falling down, revealing his wide, horrified eyes, as he fell to his knees in despair.
After a moment of pure shock as what happened sunk in, a look of pure rage contorted Dark Dean’s face.
“I am going to kill you!” he screamed as he turned around.
Only to freeze, with a bullet hole in his forehead, Dean’s eyes looking back at him from behind his gun.
Dean watched his doppelganger’s eyes lose their light as he fell backwards to hit the top of the car they were on, shocked dead eyes, staring up at the sky.
Dean took a step forward to look down at him, unsure how to feel.
“I really hope the two of you meet in hell.” He whispered to the dead body, feeling hollow inside.
His eyes turned up to the sky then, to see the effects of the explosion still apparent in the sky.
“Guys, just out of curiosity.” He said in forced calmness into the comms, eyes glued to the sky. “Who is the unlucky bastard, who flew the supernova angel to the sky to explode in peace?”
He was met with silence, which did nothing but to increase the dread spreading through him, already knowing the answer.
“Guys, come on, I know you all can hear me. I promise I won’t yell too much.” He tried again, hands already shaking in pent up panic and worry.
His eyes fell down to the battlefield, only to see Steve’s very pale face looking back at him, before looking back towards the sky.
That’s when he saw a prone winged figure, falling out of the sky.
***
Castiel was very aware that he was falling. He was aware that if he kept falling, he will eventually meet ground and that will be very unpleasant.
He was also aware that he could do nothing about it. His wings were mostly burned from being too close to the explosion, unable to get away fast enough, so he was pretty much fast falling towards the ground.
Dean will be so mad if he hit it.
Well, at least he wasn’t dead. That at least could give him a few pointers to avoid the hunter’s unavoidable wrath.
As he was mulling this over, he suddenly felt himself being caught in the middle of the air by two metallic arms.
Startled, he opened his eyes to find himself staring at the metallic face of Iron Man, with Thor hovering next to them in worry.
“Hey, Thor, look! It’s raining men!” Tony’s amused grin was evident even without seeing his face, which brought an involuntarily smile on Castiel’s own.
“How are you feeling, Castiel?” Thor asked in worry, wincing at the state of Castiel’s wings.
“I am having what you are calling a very bad week.” Castiel answered with a groan, acutely feeling every burned place in his body and wings.
“More like a bad year. You saw two versions of you die a very gruesome deaths in one year. That couldn’t be pretty.” Tony quipped helpfully, as he started to fly him down towards the ground.
“Thank you, Tony. That’s exactly what I need to hear right now.” Castiel rolled his eyes with a frown at the armored genius.
“I am guessing you have lost your comms. Otherwise, you would be hearing Dean’s increasingly loud shouts and obscenities like me right now. I think he is trying to melt everyone’s ears off at the moment.” Tony groaned while Thor winced, as apparently Dean’s shouting increased.
“Dean, you promised you won’t shout too loudly.” Thor commented miserably, wincing again, indicating that his words made Dean even angrier.
Castiel just chuckled with a shake of his head, letting his eyes close for a moment until they reach the ground.
***
By the time Tony had landed in the street with Castiel in his arms and Thor beside him, the black army had been defeated. Losing the moment their king and general fell.
Immediately, he was surrounded by the team on the ground, who rushed fast towards them.
“Is he alright? Cas, are you alright?” Steve was the first to reach them, looking in panic at the angel’s burned wings and body.
Before the angel could answer, Dean was there in the next second, managing to look both angry and scared shitless.
“Cas! You fucking, stupid-“ the words pretty much choked in Dean’s throat, as he took the angel from Tony’s arms into his, lowering him carefully to the ground, eyes flying over every inch of the angel so fast, that Tony feared they might fall out.
“I am fine. Dean, I am fine.” Castiel tried to reassure the hunter, as the rest of the team rushed to them and were surrounding them. “It is already healing. I am fine.”
“Fucking hell, Cas! I told you to fly away from the explosion!” Sam’s voice made them all jump as the tall Winchester practically sprinted towards them, followed by Charlie, Erik, Charles and Raven.
“No, my idiot doesn’t fly away from explosions. Apparently, he hugs them and fly them to the sky!” Dean yelled at Castiel’s face, while at the same time pulling the angel tightly to his chest.
“Only Dean Winchester can pull off being angry as hell and worried as fuck at the same time.” Steve commented in barley hidden amusement, making the others struggle to hold back their laughter, as Dean looked up at him with narrowed eyes.
“Dean, I am fine.” Castiel reassured again, taking Dean’s hand gently in his. “Really.”
Dean stared at him for a second, before deflating suddenly and pulled the angel tightly into his arms. Making everyone look down at the two of them with soft smiles on their faces.
“Guys, we just won.” Natasha announced with wide eyes, looking at them as they all just realized the same thing as well. “Do you realize what does that mean?”
“We can have a Midgardian Wedding now!” Thor hollered in a loud voice that rang through the city.